Subject: SMML VOL 3017 Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 02:42:55 +1100 The Ship Modelling Mailing List (SMML) is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http//sandlehobbies.com For infomation on how to Post to SMML and Unsubscribe from SMML http//smmlonline.com/aboutsmml/rules.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1 172 ship's lifeboats 2 Five thumbs 3 What are these? 4 Re Ships sinking stern first 5 Re Super-Bug, Technology and Strategic Defense 6 Re Standoff Weapons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1 Kits for sale ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From "Chris Drage" Subject 172 ship's lifeboats Thanks to Harold and co who answered my query re ship's lifeboats. Very grateful. GLS (David Parkin) does a model of a wooden life raft which will be most useful whilst Westbourne model centre www.westbourne-model.co.uk/Quaycraft-modelboatfittings.htm has a range of 132 - 1128 different boats dinghies, whalers, lifeboats, jolly boats. What a great list this is....... Regards Chris He tao rakau e taea te karo kupu kaore e taea te karo (Te reo Maori) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From "einar kr holtet" Subject Five thumbs Hi all, I am encouraged and very grateful for the feedback to my modeling tristesse, especially for the mail from Ned Barnett and Norbert Onaitis. Practical tips as well as for attitude, plus shared experience brought fresh courage. Thanks! Einar ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From Gayle and Phil Subject What are these? Hello -- I have frequently observed something in pictures of WW II RN destroyers that I cannot quite identify. It appears to be an antenna or direction finder of some sort, mounted on the front of the bridge, almost at the top. The antenna(s?) sits on a horizontal bracket supported underneath by two inclined supports. What precisely were the functions of these structures? And is there a reference to a drawing--not necessarily a detailed drawing either. Thanks. If you have a copy of R. A Burt's "British Destroyers in World War II," you can see the structure in these image/caption numbers (not page numbers) 11 HMS Vega 1942 17 HMS Verity 1943 40 HMS Icarus 1942 48 HMS Javelin 1944 There are other photos as well but these show what I'm referring to fairly clearly. Interestingly the same sort of bracket is shown on a Town class DD in image 120 of HMS Ripley. I'm guessing that the actual antennas changed as technology progress during the war, though the essential design for the mounting bracket appears similar. Now if I can only replicate it in 1/600........It's interesting how one comes to appreciate the significance of electronics in the war. When I was a kid, anything with 16" guns was an easy favorite. Now I look at the evolution of sub hunting and air defense equipment on Battle of the Atlantic escort vessels and I'm amazed at the applications of science. (I still think 16" guns are cool too). Phil Lord Elkridge, MD USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From George Levine Subject Re Ships sinking stern first From Reynold.Oh@defence.gov.au >> 1. I'm a land-lubber, not a marine engineer. But I reckon that not all ships sink stern-first. Would not the loading & speed of the ship, and where the damage occured, have quite some influence? HMS Barham & Tirpitz both turned turtle by rolling onto a beam. Titanic went down by the bow before breaking roughly in half. Titanic's stern was the LAST piece to disappear. A ship travelling at speed and torpedoed in the bow would scoop-up water, and sink bow-first. The USS Ohio made Valetta (in Malta) level, but with her main deck almost awash (in Malta). If she sank, she would possibly have simply settled in an even keel. 2. I reckon the speculation that ships sink stern-first is a waste of time. << You are correct. Not all ships sink stern first. Since almost all ships have some form of compartmentation, the location of the damage will have the greatest effect on how the ship sinks. As I remember wartime statistics, torpedo and bomb hits tended to cluster about the most prominent feature, which was the bridge and structure under it. After that, the stern got more hits than the bow. The engine rooms and stern were more important targets than the bow. George Levine Edgewater Florida ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From Ned Barnett Subject Re Super-Bug, Technology and Strategic Defense I'm not here to pick a fight with the fans of the Super-Bug (FA-18 F/G); still, I have to question some of the Navy's decisions. First, I was wrong (or out of date) about the Hoover - didn't realize that it had already been yanked from ASW operations. Don't know if that's a good idea or not, but there it is. Yes, technology has advanced to the point that small computers can do what was once done by large computers (I recently toured an E3 AWACS aircraft, and it still has the late 70s/early 80s-class IBM computers - I suspect that many of us have computers about as powerful sitting on our desktops). They get the job done, with brute force instead of elegance. Ditto the Space Shuttle, which still flies with 1975-era computers. Not sure why (other than cost) they don't upgrade these two). And I know something of the same thing applied to the Tomcat - it was 60s technology, and while some of the electronics were upgraded, it was an old bird. Still, I cannot remember when any successful air force replaced a generally superior aircraft (speed, range, radar range, weapon range) with a generally inferior aircraft. That does NOT seem like a war-winning strategy. It's as if Great Britain, looking forward to WW-II, had decided to standardize on the Hurricane (a perfectly good airplane) instead of also buying the Spitfire (a better airplane - but is it THAT MUCH BETTER?). Think about it - the Hurricane cost less (so you could build more) and it was easier to mass-produce (so you could build more, faster). The Spitfire was a marginally better aircraft, but it cost more, took longer to build and longer for a young pilot to master. If you were planning to defend Britain, wouldn't standardizing on the Hurricane be the "smart" thing to do? Maybe - but history tells a different story. I'm just afraid the USN is standardizing on the Hurricane, instead of seeing the benefits of having both planes, each playing to their strengths. Scroll down below for more specific comments in response to some specific observations of Raven and Rick. From Raven0222@aol.com >> With regards to the Super Hornet. One need look no farther than your super slim cell phone to realize that the advances in state of the art, stand off weapons has prompted the Super Hornet's roll. Currently in heavy development are two significant aerial weapons platforms that are completely unmanned. All target acquisition as well as actual target assignments are made by satellite uplink. << Great, except in the "wizard war," what one side can create, another can jam. Satellite uplinks are great - until some clever Chinese engineer figures out a way to jam or disrupt it - and with 1.25 billion or so people, you can bet that the Chinese have one hell of a lot of clever engineers. Note - I'm not specifically singling out the Chinese as "the bad guys," but they are the biggest country on the planet, and they're starting to face the same kinds of raw material shortfalls that Japan faced in '37-'41. They're building up their navy (while Russia's rusts) much faster than India (the second-largest country, and another one falling behind the natural resources curve) is doing. And North Korea has no navy to speak of, but it's got land-based air and an increasingly sophisticated missile program. If the US and the Western allies are likely to face a major military threat, IMO China is the number one candidate over the next 25 years, but based on capabilities (always defend against capabilities, not "intent"), any of those three have the potential to knock down our satellites and put a world of hurt on our carrier battle groups. >> Radar jamming is actually accomplished mostly by F-117 Stealth aircraft that carry only one pilot. GPS will soon offer us a warhead that can walk up to your door, deliver a personal video message and then detonate. << GPS is another great technology, but one that's very vulnerable. It depends on uninterrupted access to a "constellation" of low-earth-orbit satellites - all of which are vulnerable to even fairly crude anti-satellite efforts. Please note that China has recently stepped up their manned and unmanned space program. In the absence of Cold War competition, I can understand the launch-vehicle development (there's a lot of money to be made there, and the Chinese have never been shy about making a lot of money), but their manned program and their military space programs suggest (at least to me) that they might be considering a time when they'd like to degrade America's GPS system. IMO, we're way too dependent on a way too vulnerable technology. That's happened before. Remember Duncan Sandys (pronounced "Sands") the British minister of Defense in the late 50s, who said (almost 50 years ago) that the day of the manned fighter and the manned bomber were over? He all but killed the British military aerospace industry (though it took some time for it to die, it seems pretty moribund today) - yet he was completely wrong. Every country with military pretentions still has manned bombers and manned fighters, and plans to for some time to come. Is the US making an Sandys-ish mistake by betting too much on GPS and satellite uplink technology that's never had to prove itself in a war where the enemy was shooting back (or jamming systems)? Hope not, 'fraid so. >> The flying platform although still important, will serve mostly as a delivery vehicle with the big decisions made far away........online. The weapons themselves will carry the front. << Christian, you may be right. I recently inspected two unmanned X-planes, both designed to stealthily carry significant war loads while "pilots" with bad eyes and flat feet operated them from a desk half a world away. They were impressive. So are the latest iterations of Tomahawk cruise missiles. But when the technology starts breaking (and it always does), we're going to need men-in-cockpits able to deliver weapons-on-target without all the fancy stuff. Or so it seems to me. From Rick Lundin >> The Tomcat/Phoenix combination was designed to kill Soviet Bears before they were able to close to air to surface missile launching range. This is why the Phoenix had such a prodigious range. Without the Bears and Backfires there is nothing for the Phoenix to shoot down - current potential targets are now much smaller and more manuverable. << Some of them are. Some potential enemies still have long-range strike aircraft, and long-range stand-off strike missiles. The Phoenix wasn't just designed to stop Bears - it was designed to stop any missile-launcher while it was still out of range of the carriers. A Tomcat on patrol 200 nautical miles from the carrier, which uses a Phoenix to knock down a missile carrier another 125 nm away, has done it's job in protecting the carrier. A Super-Bug with shorter-range missiles and lower mission range is inviting the bad guys to get in close enough to take a shot. Sure, the Iraqis and Afghans didn't have this capability - not all that many countries do. But three potential "bad guy" enemies (potential based on their weapons and resources, not necessarily their intent - you always defend against "capabilities" instead of "intent," or you wind up with Pearl Harbor, Mk II) DO have this capability (NK, PRC and India). Are we willing to bet the ranch (or bird-farm, in this case) on the peaceful intent of these nations for the next 25 years? Gosh, I hope not. >> The Hornet may not have the absolute top speed of the Tomcat but what does that have to do with anything? Fighter top speed is not much of a measure of anything except top speed. The number looks good on paper but that's about it. There is an old saying that a mach 2 fighter will reach it's top speed just in time to run out of fuel. In fact there is little practical use for all out high mach number speed in a real world situation. << That old saying applied to mach 2 fighters that didn't have fuel-efficient turbofans - Tomcats and Eagles are mach 2, and have extensive range, too. Sure, sustained mach 2 flight can drain the tank, but there is a scenario where absolute top speed is critical, especially in the defense of a carrier. Here's the scenario - "bad guys" attack from several directions - one "obvious" that draws the CAP, one not so obvious (on the deck, or behind jammers). It's discovered later rather than sooner, and the back-up CAP has to go get 'em fast. Remember that with stand-off ship-killing weapons, the bad guys should ideally be stopped outside the performance envelope of those stand-off weapons - and a faster aircraft (one with longer-range missiles) has a better chance of doing that than a slower aircraft with shorter-range missiles. Rick, I'm not a speed-for-speed's sake guy (for instance, I think the Super-Bug is a bad choice for ASW in part because it's too damned fast); but when it comes to defending a carrier against a determined Alpha Strike, I think that range, speed and weapons range are all war-winning factors, and in switching from Tomcat to Super-Bug, the Navy's compromised all three. >> The real factors in air combat are tactical employment of multiple aircraft, pilot/personnel competance, individual and collective aircraft systems capabilities and aircraft flight performance - more or less in that order. Flight performance being defined as range, manuverability and acceleration - flat out speed just dosen't have that much tactical relevence. << Disagree with the last point, as noted above (at least in one easily-imagined scenario). Obviously, having well-trained personnel (which the Navy does, in spades) is a huge benefit - but we'd be chauvanistic fools if we were to think that potential bad guys don't have the same raw material and the same potential for training their hot-sticks just as well. And yes, standardizing on the Super-Bug means there will be more on deck - so, gutting secondary missions (ASW, jamming, etc.) we can surge a lot of fighters for a single all-out defensive battle - maybe. But the last two, in which I feel the Super-Bug is deficient, are not necessarily as secondary as you imply - THAT really depends on the quality of the opposition's technology. If a carrier is attacked by reworked MiG-21 technology aircraft, the Super-Bug is more than sufficient. However, planning for defense based on underestimating the capabilities of the opposition seems foolhardy - and every one of the three potential adversaries I noted above have at least some strike aircraft of the same general age and capability as the Super-Bug. And while the Russian economy won't let them build their own air force back up, their genius designers are still coming out with formidable next-generation aircraft that Russia's glad to sell to paying customers, including India and the PRC (not sure HOW they feel about NK - they might be smart enough to "pass" on that fool's play - but they also might be hungry enough to dance with the devil). >> There is much to be said for the standardization on fewer types of aircraft especially in the cramped quarters of an aircraft carrier. Space is at a premium aboard any ship - even one that displaces 100,000 tons. Fewer types of airframes to support means fewer spare parts and those that remain can be managed more effectively. Likewise, maintenance personnel who are familiar with the F/A-18C could be better able to lend a hand to the F/A-18E guys. << That I do agree with - the move isn't totally bone-headed, and this is the primary benefit of the switch to FA-18s over the multitude of other aircraft. But there's the other side of the coin. On a ship with limited resources (and so much at risk), having specialists - each the best in the world at what they do - can also be a real advantage. If a sub's closing in on you, you want the best ASW platform out there, not one that cut corners in the name of standardization. However, by and large, I think you're right that this is the chief benefit of standardization. But if standardization is the Navy's mantra, why are they buying the F-35? With it, we'll have a better strike aircraft, but with the Super-Bug shuffled off to the air defense role, we may have a relatively inferior CAP capability. >> The Tomcat and Viking were designed and built for an environment with a dramatically different threat array than the one faced today. Change happens and so far the Hornet/Super Hornet combination seem to be up to the job. << They were built to defend against the Soviet threat of a generation ago - you're right there. But the PRC (at least) has the potential to be the "Soviet Union" of ten years from now - a country with sophisticated attack submarines (and since they're primarily a littoral navy, ultra-quiet diesels work just as well - if not better - than longer-ranged nukes) and state-of-the-art long-range attack planes with better-than-good-enough stand-off missiles. They KNOW what they'll be up against, and can design/build/train for the sole task of taking out our carriers. We, today, don't know what we'll be up against, and I'm afraid that by making this short-cut move, we'll be making ourselves more vulnerable in 2015-2025 than we are today. Or so it seems to me Ned ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From TomGAJ@aol.com Subject Re Standoff Weapons The F-117 is NOT a radar jamming platform. Never was intended to be and I doubt it will ever be one. The F-117 is a low observable strike aircraft, with the emphasis on "low observable." Makes no sense to design a platform to be hard to identify/locate and then compromise those very qualities by announcing the platform's presence by broadcasting RF all over the spectrum. The current US ECM platform, both Navy and Air Force (since the demise of the EF-111A), is the EA-6B. Its successor-designate is the EF-18G. The Air Force is also looking at reconfiguring B-52s for the long distance/long duration ECM support role. GPS has nothing to do with warheads, it's a location/navigation system that was successfully adapted years ago for precision targeting and has been used in that function since the first Gulf War. Reality, what a concept. Tom Gaj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From Shane Subject Kits for sale Hi all, Well the next stage of culling for the move has occured and we have listed a bunch of kits for sale, including some ships . Check out the SANDLE site under 2nd hand Kits for the updated list http//sandlehobbies.com Regards, Shane ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Reviews, Articles, Backissues, Member's models & Reference Pictures at http//smmlonline.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume